LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

®^Bl^@qigrtgI|i^o 

Shelf MS-. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



A SKETCH 



OF THE 



Society of Jes«s 



v 

REV. D. A. "MERRICK, S.J. 



4 BY /HE 









NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO : 
BEN^IGER BROTHERS, 

Printers to the Holy Apostolic See. 
189I. 



Thb Libra ry 
qb Congress 

washington 



*. 



4^ 



Copyright, 1891, by Rev. D. A. Merrick, S.J. 



CONTENTS. 



Origin of the Society. Its Constitutions and Spirit. Labors 

of the first Fathers, 7 

Successors of St. Ignatius. Spread of the Society. Dis- 
tinguished Men, 18 

Missions : Japan, South America, England, China, India, 
Canada, and the United States. Scientists, Learned 
and Holy Men, 27 

Doctrines taught by Jansenius. Conflicts between the 
Jesuits and Jansenists. Consequences of Jansenistic 
Teaching. Jesuit Writers, 35 

Election of Father Ricci. The Society expelled from Portu- 
gal, France, Spain, Naples, and Parma. Suppression 
of the Society, 42 

Re-establishment of the Society. Its Present Status, . 49 



This book is intended as a companion to 
"The Saints of the Society of Jesus." For bre- 
vity's sake, the writer will avoid repeating what 
is sufficiently mentioned in that work. 



A SKETCH OF THE 

SOCIETY OF JESUS. 



Origin of the Society. Its Constitutions and 
Spirit. Labors of the First Fathers. 

The Society of Jesus took its origin on the 
Feast of the Assumption, August 15th, 1534, 
when St. Ignatius Loyola and his companions, 
six in number, vowed themselves to the service 
of God, in the chapel of Our Lady at Mont- 
martre (hill of martyrs) in Paris, on whose 
summit a grand basilica to the Sacred Heart of 

Jesus is now being completed. Three new 

7 



8 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

members joined them before the whole body 
proceeded to Italy, and these original members 
are considered the founders of the Order, of 
course after St. Ignatius. From the beginning, 
according to the saint's wish, they called 
themselves, through a motive of humility, the 
" least " Society of Jesus. Six years later the 
Order was solemnly recognized by Pope Paul 
III. One of the things which one finds most 
striking from the first is the activity of these 
men. So few in number, they scatter them- 
selves all over Europe, and produce the most 
wonderful results by their ministry. And this 
is to be a characteristic of the Society through- 
out its whole existence. The roll of its mem- 
bers never at any time reached 25,000, — a much 
smaller number than that of many other religious 
orders during the Catholic ages, — and a great 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 9 

many of these were kept inside the walls of 
colleges. Nevertheless, from the beginning the 
Jesuits seemed to be endowed with the gift of 
ubiquity : Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Eng- 
land (then the land of persecution), Europe was 
too small for them ; they spread over Asia and 
America, and the travellers of to-day are in- 
vestigating the mysterious wilds of Africa ex- 
plored two hundred years ago by the sons of St. 
Ignatius. 

The spirit which St. Ignatius breathed into 
his followers, both in his book of the Spiritual 
Exercises and in the Constitutions of his Order, 
was the spirit of detachment and devotedness. 
" All for God," in a word, was his motto ; "for 
the greater glory of God," as he expressed it. 
Nothing should keep the true Jesuit back where 
there was question of God's honor. Therefore 



10 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

he made obedience the distinguishing virtue of 
his children. Obedience was to be their spur, 
obedience their rein : so long as they were act- 
ing through obedience they were to go on ; when 
obedience said " Stop/' they stopped. This is 
very different from the spirit of the world to-day, 
is it not? The world of to-day claims inde- 
pendence, the right of every man to think and 
do as he likes. Through legitimate obedience 
we know the will of God. To do the will of 
God with all the intensity we possess is to love 
Him with all our might. This is the ideal 
Jesuit. To do our own will, whatever it may 
be, is to love self, in opposition to God. The 
most perfect example of this independence is 
the devil. 

The will of God is the salvation of souls. So 
St. Ignatius' heart burned with zeal for souls. 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. II 

If the obedience of the Society proved its devo- 
tion to God, its whole history, its infinitely-varied, 
never-ending labors, showed its love for those 
souls dear to Him. Detachment, devotedness. 
The Jesuit left his country, everything, to toil 
where obedience sent him for the good of souls. 
By vow he binds himself to go immediately, 
even without the means to pay his way, whither- 
soever it be. 

Consequently the history of the Society is a 
story of labors all over the world, of every kind, 
to bring souls to God. Italy, Europe, was too 
limited a field for Ignatius' handful of com- 
panions, and on April 7th, 1541, his thirty-fifth 
birthday, St. Francis Xavier sailed for the East, 
to conquer new continents to God. Fathers 
Salmeron and Brouet were sent to Ireland to 
encourage and strengthen its faithful people, on 



12 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

whom the storm of Protestant persecution had 
just fallen. Blessed Peter Favre with Le Jay and 
Bobadilla go to Germany, where they make the 
precious acquisition of Blessed Peter Canisius. 
From Germany Favre flies to Portugal, and 
thence to Rome to die. It was fitting that St. 
Ignatius' first son in religion should be the 
Society's first martyr of obedience. His place 
in the Spanish peninsula is supplied by St. 
Francis Borgia, whilom Duke of Gandia and 
viceroy of Catalonia, who has been received into 
the Society as soon as he could resign all his 
worldly dignities. 

But St. Ignatius was not satisfied with flying 
missionary excursions on the part of his religious. 
He wished, for he was one of the wisest of men, 
that his work and that their works should be 
permanent. How could he best effect this? 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 1 3 

At that day, as at this day, the way to secure 
permanency to any good work was to secure its 
foundations. He who lays a solid foundation 
may erect a safe building ; without the founda- 
tion there can be no building. The question of 
the day, then as now, was the education of 
youth. Consequently Ignatius dedicated his 
Order in a special manner to the Catholic edu- 
cation of the young. The Jesuits pledge them- 
selves to be always ready to teach the catechism, 
St. Francis Xavier himself taught it to the little 
children in India. One of the great and one 
of the earliest works of the Society has been the 
direction of colleges. The Duke of Gandia as- 
sisted the Fathers in opening some of the first 
in Spain. The times needed this devotion to 
education and religion and catechetical in- 
struction. For in many parts both the clergy 



14 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

and the laity, on their account, were wofully un- 
instructed. This was what gave the pseudo-re- 
formers the power to spread their false doctrines. 
Therefore the early Jesuit Fathers set to work to 
help to remedy this evil, which the Council of 
Trent corrected finally and efficaciously by the 
establishment, so far as possible, of ecclesiastical 
seminaries in all the dioceses of the Church. 

To this Council of Trent, which was attended 
also by Father Le Jay, Fathers Laynez and 
Salmeron were sent by the Holy Father as his 
own theologians. The Fathers of the Council 
were dazzled by the learning and eloquence of 
these three young men, then little over thirty 
years of age ; though all other speakers were 
limited to one hour, Father Laynez was allowed 
to speak for three hours continuously, and during 
his illness the deliberations of the Council were, 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 1 5 

suspended. Two things God seems to have 
watched over in the Society : never has it as a 
body been accused of heterodoxy, never of im- 
morality. Hated and maligned as it has been, 
it has been charged with pride, ambition, lax- 
ness in treating with sinners, but never with the 
crime of which Our Lord was not accused. Like 
Him it has been persecuted, but its enemies 
have not been allowed to arraign it of sins 
against the sixth commandment. And as for 
doctrine, the instinct by which the Jesuits have 
always detected false teaching is something 
really supernatural, a gift : good Catholics have 
always looked to the Society of Jesus, in the 
many controversies of the past three centuries, 
to know on which side in probability truth was 
to be found. Their vow of obedience to the 
successor of St. Peter would not have been per- 



1 6 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

feet if the Jesuits had ever failed in the loyalty 
of their adhesion to the faith of Peter. The 
recompense of this vow would seem to be a 
light to direct them in guarding the outskirts of 
and approaches to that faith. 

St. Ignatius was a great revolutionist in his 
own way. In many respects he modified the 
customs common to religious orders to suit the 
special object of his institute.* The Jesuits 
were to be the light artillery of the Church ; 
they should therefore be as little embarrassed 
with accoutrements as possible, so as to be al- 
ways ready for motion. The Fathers recited 
their office privately, like secular priests, and wore 
no particular habit. The new pope wished to 
oblige them to say the office in common ; they 

* For certain details about the Institute of the Society, see note in 
"The Saints of the Society of Jesus," 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 1 7 

complied, but after his death were permitted to 
return to their own practice. Another pope 
objected to the name of the Society, saying he 
did not wish to take off his cap every time he 
spoke of these religious, and ordered them to 
drop the name of Jesus ; but he died before he 
signed his order. 



1 8 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 



Successors of St. Ignatius. Spread of the 
Society. Distinguished Men. 

Under Father Laynez, who succeeded St. 
Ignatius as General, the Society made rapid 
progress, but at the same time began to meet 
with much opposition. Father Gonzalves, tutor 
to the ill-fated King Sebastian of Portugal, was 
the first of the many Jesuits who were forced to 
take the charge of royal consciences. Pius IV., 
who succeeded Paul IV., was very friendly to 
the Society ; nor could his friendship be shaken 
by its enemies, who tried to persuade him that 
the Jesuits were endeavoring to induce his 
nephew, St. Charles Borromeo, to become one 
of their number. A Father Venusti, in Sicily, 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 19 

had frequently befriended a fallen priest, who, 
in return for his charity, stabbed him to death. 
The Father refused to reveal the name of his 
murderer. The man was suspected ; the Jesuits 
asked for his pardon. In vain. The exhausted 
fugitive from justice finally took refuge in a col- 
lege of the Order. All persons had been for- 
bidden to harbor him under severe penalties, but 
the Fathers kept him for two days, and then 
sent him to a place of safety. The last letter of 
Father Laynez was penned in approval of this 
conduct. About the same time with the Gen- 
eral died Father de Nobrega, a great missionary 
in Brazil. The day before his death he visited all 
his friends, saying, " Good-by ; I am going 
home." 

St. Francis Borgia became General of the 
Society after Father Laynez, in 1565, at the age 



20 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

of fifty-five. The Society then possessed 3500 
members and 130 houses, divided into 18 
provinces. St. Pius V. was elected pope in 
January of the following year. He was always 
a great friend of the Order, though at first in- 
clined to introduce some modifications in the 
rules. The Fathers having devoted themselves 
to the care of the victims of pestilence in the 
holy city, St. Pius, in reward, promised them 
that, in the case of a similar calamity, they should 
always have the privilege of attending the 
afflicted ! They showed the same devotion to 
the plague-stricken Moors in Spain : here the 
number of sufferers was so great in the hospitals, 
and they were so packed, that the priests had to 
lie down by their side to hear their confessions. 
In Portugal fourteen Fathers were carried off by 
the fell disease. To the personal efforts of 



A SKETCH OE THE SOCIETY OF JESTS. 21 

Father Borgia, in a tour of the different courts 
of Europe for that purpose, was due, in great 
measure, the alliance of Christian princes which 
defeated and destroyed the Turkish navy in the 
battle of Lepanto. From this journey, under- 
taken in obedience to the Holy Father, St. 
Francis returned only to die. It was he who 
laid the foundation of the Church of the Gesu. 
Under him the foreign missions took a large 
development, generally without the shedding of 
blood ; though, besides the forty martyrs of the 
Society who have been beatified, thirty others 
were also butchered at sea by heretical pirates 
on another occasion. 

The first three Generals of the Jesuits were 
Spaniards ; the fourth, Father Everard Mercu- 
rian, was a Belgian. Belgium, however, at that 
time was subject to the crown of Spain. Father 



22 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

Mercurian sent the first Jesuit missionaries, 
Fathers Parsons and Campion, to England. 
Many distinguished men flourished in the Soci- 
ety at this time : Father, afterwards Cardinal, 
Bellarmine, the greatest of controversialists, 
whose process of beatification has been com- 
menced ; Toletus, also made Cardinal, and Mai- 
donatus, the one an eminent theologian, the 
other a great commentator on the Scriptures ; 
Father Balthazar Alvarez, confessor of St. Te- 
resa ; Father Possevinus, who, having been am- 
bassador to the courts of Spain, France, Swe- 
den, Poland, and Russia, ended his days by giv- 
ing poor country missions; and many others. 
At the death of Father Mercurian the Society 
numbered 5000 members. 

On the death of Father Mercurian, Our Lady 
appeared to Father Darbyshire, an Englishman, 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 2$ 

and revealed to him that she had chosen a young 
Father Claudius for the next General. Father 
Claudius Aquaviva governed the Society for the 
space of thirty-four years, from 1 581 to 161 5, 
a longer period than any other General. At 
this time Sixtus V., a great pope and a man of 
very strong will, ascended the pontifical chair. 
In opposition to nearly everybody else, he deter- 
mined to introduce radical changes in the Con- 
stitutions formed by St. Ignatius, and obliged 
the General to petition him to do so. As, how- 
lever, no changes were effected before the death 
of the pope, nothing came of this determination. 
Under Pope Clement VIII., the Fathers, while 
their brethren were spreading the faith in the 
north and east of Europe, were banished for 
fifty years from the republic of Venice for their 
fidelity to the Holy See. This pope decided the 



24 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

famous controversy between the Jesuits and the 
Dominicans on the nature of the action of divine 
grace in the soul, by declaring that each party 
was free to hold its own opinion. The Jesuits, 
under Father Molina, maintained the view 
which is now generally considered as more com- 
patible with the existence of free will in man. 

The reconciliation of King Henry IV. of 
France to the Church was due in a great meas- 
ure to the Jesuits. Indeed the circumstances of 
the times in this kingdom drew the Fathers too 
much into politics, but the efforts of the General 
to withdraw them from courts and camps met 
with hearty co-operation on their part. Father 
Auger was confessor to Henry III., and Father 
Cotonto Henry IV., as other Fathers continued 
to be afterwards to the kings of France ; but 
this was an honor which the Society submitted 



A SKETCH OP THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 2$ 

to reluctantly, and permitted to be conferred 
only on her most solidly virtuous men. Father 
Bobadilla, the last companion of St. Ignatius, 
and Father Ribadeneira, his favored child, died, 
both at a very advanced age, under Father 
Aquaviva. So did Blessed Peter Canisius and 
St. Aloysius. To this period belong the great 
theologians of the Society, Fathers Suarez, Vas- 
quez, de Lugo, Lessius, Cornelius a Lapide, 
Emmanuel Sa, Sanchez. These men, and oth- 
ers, rendered great service to the Church by their 
learning and writings. To Father Aquaviva is 
due the honor of completing the Ratio Studiorinn, 
or system of teaching in use in the Order, accord- 
ing to Lord Bacon the most perfect method 
ever invented. The importance of this service 
will be estimated when we consider that perhaps 
the principal work of the Jesuits is the teaching 



26 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

of youth in colleges, and that the majority of 
distinguished Catholic priests and laymen of the 
past three hundred years have been their pupils. 
The Sodality of the Blessed Virgin was estab- 
lished at this time by a young professor in the 
Roman college. Under Father Aquaviva the 
Annual Letters of the Society were started, which 
furnished material for its history, as well as the 
famous missionary documents called Les Lettres 
Edifiantes et Curieuses. 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 2J 



Missions: Japan, South America, England, China, 
India, Canada, and the United States. Scien- 
tists, Learned and Holy Men. 

The most famous mission of the Society in 
olden times was that of Japan. Much, for our 
brief space, has been said about it in " The 
Saints of the Society of Jesus." This mission 
owed much to Father Valignani, who founded the 
province of Japan, opened thirty of the houses 
there, and, so long as he lived, restrained the 
fury of the pagan persecutors. As to the perse- 
cution in Japan, it is one of the most glorious 
chapters in the history of the Church. It lasted 
fifty years, after which such stringent measures 
were adopted as rendered impossible the landing 



28 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

of a missionary in these islands. In order to 
continue to trade there, the Protestant merchants, 
to their shame, submitted to the indignity of 
trampling on the cross. One sad episode oc- 
curred : a provincial of the Society renounced 
the faith. The wondrous Father Mestrilli de- 
voted his life for his conversion ; and, after all 
the missionaries had been expelled, the apostate 
atoned for his fault by shedding his blood for the 
faith. Until the Society was suppressed in 1773 
there was always a nominal province of Japan, 
with missionaries ready to proceed to that coun- 
try, the dearest perhaps on earth to the heart of 
a Jesuit. 

But whither did they not go, the missionaries 
of the Society of Jesus ? They invaded Tartary; 
they traversed South America from east to 
west ; they tried to convert the Ethiopians, and 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 2g 

explored that Central Africa which has been re- 
discovered in our own days. The most extraor- 
dinary man and greatest miracle-worker in South 
America was perhaps Father Anchieta, the 
apostle of Brazil ; the birds of the air and the 
very wild beasts obeyed him as reasonable things. 
A glorious outcome of the missions in that con- 
tinent were the Reductions of Paraguay, founded 
in 1610. This was the most paternal govern- 
ment ever known in history. For a hundred 
and fifty years the ferocious tribes of that large 
country, subdued by the charity of the Fathers, 
lived under them in a kind of Christian social- 
istic community, like the early Christians men- 
tioned in the Acts of the Apostles, or the relig- 
ious communities of the present time. The evil 
day came when they were scattered by the 
enemies of religion, and the poor Indians re- 



30 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

lapsed into barbarism. In North America the 
French missionaries of the Society penetrated to 
the prairies; Father Marquette discovered the 
Mississippi ; Jogues, de Breboeuf, and others 
watered the soil of Canada and the United States 
with their blood. 

A bloody field for the missionary at this time 
was the land once called " Our Lady's Dower," or 
"The Isle of Saints." The persecution in Eng- 
land rivalled even that of Japan. It was aggra- 
vated by the discovery of the famous Gunpowder 
Plot, and renewed by the lying accusations of 
Titus Oates. The Irish Fathers shared in the 
sufferings occasioned by the invasion of their 
country by Cromwell ; and the Scotch heretics 
invented the ingenious torture for Father Ogilvy 
of keeping him from sleep for eight days and 
nine nights. 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 3 1 

The mission of China, on the contrary, whose 
conversion was the dying aspiration of St. 
Francis Xavier, was a peaceful one. Here the 
Fathers succeeded in ingratiating themselves 
with the emperors. Their knowledge of 
mathematics and astronomy obtained for them 
a great reputation among the learned men of the 
country. Father Ricci was buried with public 
honors. Father Schall acquired an influence 
equal to his with the emperors of the Tartar 
dynasty. Father de Rhodes, the apostle of 
Tonquin, founded the French Foreign Missions, 
which is to-day sending missionaries all over the 
world. This man evangelized all Central Asia. 
At the same time the Fathers commenced gath- 
ering in the abandoned children, the great work 
continued by the Holy Infancy. A trouble 
however, awaited the mission in China, similar to 



32 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

that which disturbed the Fathers in East India. 
Some ceremonies to which the Chinese neo- 
phytes were attached in honor of their ancestors 
were condemned as superstitions, contrary to the 
judgment of the missionaries. This occasioned 
many defections and the temporary alienation of 
the court, and the Chinese mission languished 
till the suppression of the Society. A great 
man appeared in India in the person of Father 
Robert de Nobili. In order to convert the 
Brahmins, the most influential caste in the 
country, he adapted himself to their austere mode 
of living. For this he was called to account, 
but the Holy See justified him, and other 
Fathers followed his example. Perhaps more 
descendants of native converts remain in India 
than in any other foreign country. Finally, the 
Catholic emigrants to Maryland brought with 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 33 

them Jesuit priests, who, with their brethren 
and successors., have always remained, and who 
founded the Church in the United States. 
Many of these missionaries dispersed all over the 
world were also great savants. Europe is in- 
debted to them for a vast amount of useful in- 
formation in the various branches of science. 

One of the great Jesuit scientists in Father 
Aquaviva's time was Father Clavius, who re- 
formed the calendar. In Spain Father Mariana 
wrote the history of his country ; in Portugal 
Father Alvarez composed his great grammar. 
Under Father Vitelleschi, the successor (1615- 
1645) of Father Aquaviva, other great men ap- 
peared : Father de Spee, the first to attack and 
disturb the then general belief in witchcraft ; 
Father Kircher, the inventor of the magic-lantern, 
a sort of universal genius ; Father Petau, or 



34 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

Petavius, the great patristic theologian. Fathers 
de Spee, Balde the poet, and others rendered dis- 
tinguished services in Germany during the Thirty 
Years' War. Besides the remarkable men of the 
Society at this epoch might be mentioned others 
who were formed by them : St. Francis de 
Sales, Cardinal de Berulle, Mr. Olier, founder 
of the Sulpitians, the Blessed Peter Fourier, and 
the Ven. Father Eudes. 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 3S 



Doctrines Taught by Jansenius. Conflicts be- 
tween the Jesuits and the Jansenists. Con- 
sequences of Jansenistic Teaching. Jesuit 
Writers. 

We may now speak of Jansenism, the most 
nsidious heresy ever introduced into the Church, 
against which the Society of Jesus combated 
literally to the death. A part of the doctrine of 
Martin Luther, accentuated by Calvin, was that 
man had no free will, that he always remained 
bad, and that we were saved independently of 
any merit of our own. Jansenism was Calvin- 
ism disguised, and the art of the disguise con- 
sisted in this, that on number of declarations 
from Rome itself could induce its upholders to 
admit that they were not the best and saintliest 



36 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

of Catholics while teaching the veriest and rank- 
est Protestantism. Jansen, or Jansenius, bishop 
of Ypres, who gave his name to the sect, taught, 
with Calvin, that some commandments of God 
were impossible of observance, that grace was 
irresistible (therefore that we could not help 
doing what we were inclined to), that Christ 
did not die for all men, etc.,— propositions 
which were all condemned of course, and sev- 
eral times. The Catholic doctrine, which is 
so reasonable, teaches that sanctifying grace is 
an interior thing, by which man who is justified 
is made holy, though still inclined to evil ; that 
Our Lord died for all men ; that actual grace is 
offered to all, and that we are perfectly free to 
correspond with it or not, and hence our merit 
and the variety of merit ; hence also the justice 
of God, Who only punishes those who of their 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 37 

own free will refuse to obey His command- 
ments, which it is in the pow T er of all to observe. 
In morals the Jansenists were as rigid as they 
were severe in dogma. Their law was the law 
of fear. Above all things they opposed frequent 
communion ; they wrote books against it, exag- 
gerating the conditions which were required to 
receive worthily. Consequently their nuns at 
Port Royal worshipped Our Lord — at a dis- 
tance ; they exposed Him on the altar, but did 
not receive Him into their hearts. No won- 
der, then, that when Our Saviour Himself re- 
vealed to the Blessed Margaret of the Visi- 
tation the devotion to His Sacred Heart, of 
which the first apostle w T as her confessor, the 
venerable Father de la Colombiere, and which 
was to be propagated by the Society of Jesus, 
the Jansenists should have risen in arms against 



38 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

what was so contrary to their harsh and gloomy 
creed. No wonder, also, that in their war- 
fare against the champions of the Church 
they should have had for allies the corrupt 
men and women of a dissolute court ; for when 
was not hypocrisy allied with vice, pride with 
immorality? No wonder, too, that our Eng- 
lish Protestant literature is full of the praises of 
the Jansenists — for example, of Pascal, the 
clever but untruthful satirist of the Society ; 
that it should be so " goes without saying." 
No wonder, finally, not that the enmity of 
these late Pharisees, with the help of their po- 
litical abettors, should have compassed the de- 
struction of the Society itself, but that they 
should have hastened that development of im- 
piety and hatred of law which has caused the 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 39 

French revolution, and which troubles the agi- 
tated Europe of to-day. 

It would be tedious to narrate all the wrang- 
lings with the Jansenists, and their tergiver- 
sations. These difficulties continued under all 
the successive Generals of the Society down to 
its suppression. The Jansenists disappeared as 
a body, though they have still two bishops in 
Holland, who are accused lately of having con- 
secrated or ordained some of the pseudo-Catholic 
clergymen of the Ritualistic party in the An- 
glican Church. But their evil influence, which 
was wide-spread, has lasted until our own time 
among the clergy of Italy, Ireland, and other 
countries, as well as France. It required all 
the efforts of a saint, St. Liguori, the founder 
of the Redemptorists, when the Jesuits were 
no more, to free the confessional from the 



40 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

withering influence of this most un-Catholic 
and most unlovable and most discouraging and 
disheartening school of doctrine. 

As this is intended to be only a sketch of the 
history of the Order of St. Ignatius, we shall 
pass over all further details of its several ad- 
ministrations, not to be too minute ; nor shall 
we make any mention again of the illustrious 
men to whom it gave birth, since, on the one 
hand, our space will not allow us to dwell upon 
their merits, and, on the other, a mere catalogue 
of names would be very dry reading, conveying 
little intelligence to the mind. Nevertheless 
these distinguished men were many. Among 
writers only, a hundred names could be cited of 
authors of works on spirituality alone who 
occupy the very first rank in public esteem 
in this most important branch ; for example, 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 41 

Rodriguez, Scaramelli, de Ponte, and so on. 
The Bollandists' "Lives of the Saints" is without 
question the most stupendous literary task ever 
undertaken : begun in Belgium two hundred 
and fifty years ago, the sturdy Belgians are 
working at it still, and God knows when they 
will be done. In our own time we have had 
astronomers so world-renowned as Fathers de 
Vico, Secchi, and Perry. There is not a field, 
indeed, of learning or labor open to priestly zeal 
wherein the Society does not count its heroes 
by the score and by the hundred. 



42 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 



Election of Father Ricci. The Society Expelled 
from Portugal, France, Spain, Naples, and 
Parma. Suppression of the Society. 

In 1758 Father Lorenzo Ricci was elected 
eighteenth General of the Society. The thrones 
of Spain, France, and Naples were then occupied 
by the house of Bourbon. The ministers who 
governed in these countries, as well as in Por- 
tugal, were what were then called " philosophers," 
i.e., infidels, followers of Voltaire. Now Vol- 
taire was the enemy of the Church of Jesus 
Christ, which he called " infamous;" his favorite 
expression being, " Let us crush the infamous." 
A great rampart of the Church, with its mis- 
sions, its colleges, its preachers, its writers, its 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 43 

spiritual directors, was the Society of Jesus. 
The sons of Voltaire decreed together, like the 
sanhedrim of old, u Let us crush the Jesuits." 
And they did : God permitted it, as He per- 
mitted His own vicar upon earth to decree their 
suppression,— that they might give the most 
sublime example possible of their favorite virtue 
of obedience, by dying. " No man can give a 
greater proof of his love for his friend than to 
die for him." One day young Ribadeneira saw 
St. Ignatius with a smiling face. Being cross- 
questioned by the boy, the saint told him why : 
11 Because, Peter, the Lord has assured me 
that, in answer to my prayers, the Society will 
never cease to enjoy the precious heritage of 
contradictions and persecutions." Was it re- 
vealed to him that this should be carried to the 
extent of death itself ? Enmity, calumny, occa- 



44 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

sional persecution, the Society encountered from 
the beginning. It was reserved for the eighteenth 
century to witness a conspiracy of the govern- 
ments of the Catholic countries of Europe to 
force the head of the Church to destroy the 
Order, under threat of a religious revolt similar 
to that of Germany and England. Why ? Be- 
cause these governments were in the hands of 
the enemies of God and His Church, who wished 
the removal of the Society only to be better 
able to strike at the breast of its mother, the 
Church. 

This pitiful story we can only hint at ; it is as 
harrowing as the narration of the sufferings of 
Ireland or the French revolution, of which 
latter it was the precursor. The first blow was 
struck in Portugal, a country which had always 
been favorable to the Fathers. Joseph Carvalho 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 45 

Marquis of Pombal, obtained his position of 
minister through the influence of a Jesuit priest. 
He was not long in throwing off his mask of 
affection for the Society. The weak king 
allowed him to do as he pleased. The Fathers 
were expelled from the kingdom; their missions 
in India and America were broken up ; they 
were subjected to every ill-treatment ; the vener- 
able Father Malagrida was first mocked, then 
strangled to death ; two hundred Jesuits lan- 
guished in prison for eighteen years. 

France was the first country to imitate Por- 
tugal. One thing should be here acknowledged. 
By meddling in politics, one simple Father put 
the Society in the power of Pombal. By in- 
dulging in financial speculations, another, Father 
Lavalette, Superior of the house in the island 
of Martinique, gave a handle to the spite of its 



46 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS, 

enemies in France. Both acted against the let- 
ter and the spirit of their institute. And at this 
time all sorts of accusations were repeated 
against the Society. A new edition of the 
Monita Secreta was published, an infamous 
book purporting to contain the secret and dis- 
honest instructions given to its members, which 
had been refuted a hundred and fifty years 
before. Other equally absurd publications ap- 
peared. The parliament of Paris condemned 
the Society in 1762 ; the miserable Louis XV., 
urged by his minister Choiseul and his mistress 
the Marquise de Pompadour, signed the decree 
of its expulsion, and in 1767, to the number of 
four thousand, the Jesuits were driven from 
France. 

In Spain the mind of the king was poisoned 
against the Fathers by his premier, D'Aranda, 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 47 

and others, through the insinuation that the Gen- 
eral of the Society had declared him to be 
illegitimate. This is the explanation generally 
accepted by Protestant as well as Catholic his- 
torians. Without warning, with only their 
breviaries in their hands, six thousand sons of 
St. Ignatius were expelled from the Spanish 
dominions. In Naples they were driven from 
all their houses in one night. Parma followed, 
then Malta. Finally the Bourbon ambassadors 
presented to the Holy Father a demand that the 
whole Society be suppressed. So long as 
Clement XIII. lived that would never be done. 
On the 19th of May, 1769, Lorenzo Ganganelli, 
who owed his cardinal's hat to the recommenda- 
tion of the General of the Jesuits, ascended the 
pontifical throne under the name of Clement 
XIV. On the 21st of July, 1773, he signed the 



48 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

brief of the suppression of the Society. The 
following 15th of Augiist was the two hundred 
and thirty-ninth anniversary of its birth at Mont- 
martre. The next day its General was a prisoner 
and itself was no more. St. Ignatius' prayer 
had been heard indeed. On the harm done to 
religion and civilization all over the world by 
the destruction of the Jesuit colleges and mis- 
sions it would be useless here to dilate. 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY .OF JESUS. 49 



Re-establishment of the Society. Its Present 
Status. 

Yet it still lived. Frederick, king of Prussia, 
and the Russian empress Catherine, both non 
Catholics, but able princes, refused to accept the 
papal brief. Pius VI., successor of Clement 
XIV., verbally consented to the existence of the 
Society in Russia, and Pius VII. gave it his 
written approval. Some houses were re-opened 
in Parma, and in 1804 Father Joseph Pignatelli, 
who had been among the Fathers expelled from 
Spain, was appointed provincial of the Society 
in Naples. Two organizations had been formed 
before the close of the eighteenth century 
by young men, one in France, under the name 



50 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

of " Society of the Sacred Heart," the other 
in Italy, with the title of " Fathers of the 
Faith," which coalesced into one under the 
latter title, with the design and hope of 
being absorbed into the re-established Society 
of Jesus. The most distinguished Superior 
of this body was Father Varin, to whom 
we owe the female communities of the Ladies 
of the Sacred Heart and the Sisters of Notre 
Dame, the foundresses of both which institu- 
tions have been declared Venerable, The hope 
of these young priests was not disappointed. 
On the 7th of August, 18 14, octave of the Feast 
of St. Ignatius, Pius VII. re-established the 
Jesuit Order throughout the whole world. The 
obedience of the Society, which had died without 
a murmur, was rewarded. A great lesson ; and 
we may hope that that obedience will continue 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS, SI 

to be rewarded in the future by God's blessings 
upon its works. The Fathers of the old Society 
still living, and working as secular priests in dif- 
ferent parts, hastened to be received into the 
new organization; younger novices off ered them- 
selves in plenty. Charles Emmanuel, king of 
Sardinia and grand-uncle of the late Victor 
Emmanuel, ended his days in it as an humble 
religious ; and later, Cardinal Odescalchi laid 
down his purple to enter the Roman novitiate. 
Shortly after the re-establishment of the Society, 
the conversion of Prince Galitzin determined 
the expulsion of the Fathers from Russia, which 
proved to be an advantage, inasmuch as these 
Fathers were able to give a religious formation 
to the young men who were entering the Order 
in the different countries of Europe. The 
Fathers in America had been among the first to 



52 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

affiliate themselves with the tolerated Society in 
Russia. 

In the year 1829 the Jesuits were recalled to 
Portugal. A year later they visited the church 
where the body of their excommunicated perse- 
cutor, Pombal, lay unburied since the 5th of 
May, 1782, and there, after an interval of nearly 
fifty years, in the presence of that uninterred 
body, they offered up a Mass of requiem for his 
soul. 

Since its re-establishment the Society has pro- 
gressed and established itself throughout the 
world. It has now about thirteen thousand 
members, divided into some two dozen provinces, 
with various missions. In the United States, 
besides two provinces, and several missions 
which may be formed into provinces, we have 
entire charge of the extreme southern peninsula 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 53 

of Florida, and of all Alaska. St. Ignatius' 
prayer for persecution still, however, continues to 
be heard ; if our missions and colleges and 
works appear to flourish in some countries, in 
others we are liable to be expelled at a moment's 
notice, in others only tolerated, and in others 
not allowed to exist at all. The first step in the 
path of persecution of religion by modern gov- 
ernments or societies seems always to be to 
suppress or expel the Jesuits. This has happened 
even repeatedly during the past three quarters 
of a century in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, 
Germany, Mexico, and the South American 
States. During quite recent years, to give one 
example of the sort of stability we enjoy in so- 
called Catholic nations, the scholastics — i.e., the 
young men not yet ordained, who are still pur- 
suing their studies — of the province of Venice, 



54 A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. 

having been sent out of Italy, took refuge in 
Austria ; being dismissed by the Austrians, they 
passed over to France ; told to go by the French 
authorities, they retired to Spain ; not finding 
the climate of Spain agreeable, they withdrew 
to Croatia, where they are now awaiting what 
development the future has in store for them. 
The Society does not exist in Russia. The 
Scandinavian governments have begun to toler- 
ate the Jesuits as they have begun to be tolerant 
towards the Church ; and as the Church, so our 
Order enjoys most peace and liberty in the Eng- 
lish-speaking countries. 

"The obedient man shall speak victories/' 
says the Scripture. One of the objections to 
the rule of the Society is that it hampers individu- 
ality. Perhaps it does so ; but discipline is more 
necessary in an army than individuality, and the 



A SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS. $5 

story we have outlined shows, if it shows any- 
thing, that vigorous and successful work for God 
has not failed to characterize that band of imita- 
tors of the humility of Christ to whom their 
first leader gave the name of Company of Jesus. 

If any one wishes to know more about the 
Society of Jesus, let him procure and read the 
charming work in two volumes entitled "The 
Jesuits, by B. N.," published within recent 
years. 



Printed by Benzighr Brothers, New York. 



